Tag: Community

A mantra here at Cool Choices is that change works best when it is fun, social and easy and we work hard to make sure our initiatives meet all three criteria.

Lately there have been a number of stories about efforts to encourage biking that reinforce the importance of ‘easy’.

Change is easy when there are not big barriers looming in the distance. When it comes to biking, folks have traditionally identified multiple barriers:

• Nowhere to store my bike at work
• No showers at work, which means if I get to work sweaty I will stay that way
• Biking looks dangerous—have you seen those guys in traffic?
• My commute is too long to consider biking

Over the last few years there have been tremendous effort to address these barriers.

Communities are tackling the last issue, for example, by accommodating bikes on public transit systems—so that people can overcome longer distances with a combination of biking and transit.  By 2008, 71% of public transit buses in the US had bike racks.

And thanks, perhaps, to the emphasis on transportation in the LEED^® rating system. Because of LEED, more and more buildings feature showers and bike parking. After all, employers see multiple advantages to encouraging employees to bike to work since biking reduces both pressure on automobile parking lots and the company’s overall carbon footprint while contributing favorably to employee wellness.

Increasingly, then, the barriers to biking come down to the issue of biker safety. In some areas—both urban and rural—biking feels pretty dangerous, especially to the inexperienced biker. Many of us cannot imagine zipping in and out of traffic the way bike messengers do in the movies. Which is why we were so excited to see a number of cities implement measures that make biking safer for the rest of us. 

Chicago, Washington, D.C., Memphis, Austin, San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, have implemented a Green Lane Project that creates special bicycle lanes—separated from automobile traffic by physical barriers. Observers say the programs are working. The lanes are drawing a diverse set of bikers, many of whom might have been previously nervous about biking these urban streets. Similar efforts in London have led to a 70% increase in bike traffic.

Many cities are finding that more bikers also means fewer bike-related accidents. Experts explain that when automobile drivers expect to share the road with bikers their car driving habits change and there are fewer car-bike accidents. So biking doesn’t just feel safer, it really is safer.

Change happens most readily when it is fun, social and easy. And relative to biking, the changes are getting easier all the time.

There has been some hand wringing in recent days regarding findings from the National Geographic’s annual Greendex survey. Commentators read the survey and bemoan that Americans are not only more wasteful than their peers around the world, but we also don’t feel guilty about that waste.

Reading the survey results I see a slightly different explanation.

Greendex is a measure of consumer attitudes and opinions, as well as practices. Across four categories of consumer behavior (housing, transportation, food and consumption of goods), Americans ranked dead last, meaning our behaviors have greater environmental impacts than the parallel behaviors of our peers in any of the other 17 countries surveyed.

That ranking is no surprise. Our suburban, car-oriented culture is resource intensive and the US has ranked last each year since the survey began in 2008.

What seems discouraging is that just 21% of US respondents feel guilty about their environmental footprint, compared to higher percentages in other countries like India and China where people have lower footprints. The spin has been that we’re wasteful and that we don’t care.

Looking at some of the other findings here—consistent with other recent surveys—I think there is another story.  In the Greendex survey 52% of Americans described themselves as green. So more than half of us think we are doing our part. At the same time these same US respondents said only 35% of all Americans are green.

That means that if there’s a problem in the US, it’s not me it’s you.

This is consistent with the recent AP-NORC survey on energy use and attitudes where only 9% of respondents thought their usage was higher than others in their community—9%. The rest split pretty evenly between reporting they were average or that their usage was below average.

The problem is that we are confident that we are not the problem.

Cool Choices sees this phenomenon in our work inside corporate communities. When we do baseline surveys the majority of employees report that they are doing their part to be sustainable.  When asked what portion of their coworkers share this commitment the numbers drop. Indeed, the Greendex numbers look pretty consistent with what we have seen.

And this is a problem. Actually it is multiple problems.

• First, the perception that I’m the only one trying gives me license to try less hard going forward.  This is the ‘I’ve already done my part’ phenomena that George Marshall and others cite.
• More importantly, though, the sense that I’m in the minority has huge implications for social norms. If I think most of my colleagues do not care about sustainability then I’m less likely to speak up when I see opportunities.
• And, of course, I will feel less guilty about my overall impact—because it is not as big as the impacts of others around me.

Making sustainability efforts more visible—giving people proof that those around them are also trying to do the right thing—achieves multiple objectives.  It busts open the myth that I’m the only one who cares and it puts my current efforts (which might not be as green as I want to think) in context with the actions of my peers, ideally spurring me to do more.

Cool Choices achieves visibility through game systems that are transparent—so that players can see what actions other players have claimed. How can you enhance the visibility of sustainable actions in your work?

In case you did not notice, we are all trying to do our part.

Two recent surveys suggest that the vast majority of Americans are making an effort to save energy and reduce their emissions.

In a national survey by the Energy Center of Wisconsin, 73% of respondents said that they had done something in the last year to save energy with the average respondent reporting four specific actions. The most common actions reported were installing more efficient lighting and adjusting the thermostat. Similarly, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey found:

An overwhelming majority, 89 percent, of the public reports personally doing something to try to save energy in the past year, with day-to-day actions, such as turning off lights, turning down the heat, and driving less and walking or biking more reported most often.

These are, of course, self-reports but there is evidence—like the downward trend in vehicle miles traveled and the uptick in sales of fuel efficient vehicles—that suggests Americans are taking more steps towards environmentally sustainable choices.

This is great news and it merits a big pat on the back—some positive reinforcement for everyone.

One form of reinforcement is the dollar savings associated with these actions but we know that the financial impact of an individual’s actions can be hard to see.

People need other kinds of reinforcement and experts tell us recognition is the best encouragement of all. Put simply, people need someone to notice and praise their efforts to save energy so that they feel encouraged to do even more. But when I adjust the thermostat at home to save energy my neighbors and friends are oblivious. Heck, half the people living in my house do not notice the change.

Cool Choices generates positive reinforcement through our games.  Game participants report their environmentally sustainable actions (which makes those actions visible to others) and by doing so they earn points (a form of recognition) for the actions. We also use game mechanics to give people opportunities to show off their changes (via pictures, stories, etc.) and to recommend specific actions to other participants. Through the process, participants learn that others in their community share their commitment to sustainability and that, together, these individuals can achieve substantive results.

We hope others will follow our lead in celebrating change. If you are doing the right things, think about how you can make your actions more visible to those around you and, alternatively, when you see someone else doing the right thing take a moment to applaud their efforts.

It feels good to do your part but it feels even better when your community celebrates your efforts and you can see how those simple changes add up to big results.

Since Cool Choices gives corporate employees opportunities to win by being more sustainable, we are always interested in other workplace gamification efforts. A recent piece about games as part of wellness programs caught our attention. The article showcased several models and talked about how organizers used prizes to generate interest and participation.

In the end, though, it wasn’t the money that drew the workers in. It was the online camaraderie, and the challenge. “People wanted to be on the winning team,” says Julie McGovern, Chilton’s vice president of administration and HR.

That is worth repeating: participation wasn’t about cash prizes. People wanted a challenge and the camaraderie of facing that challenge together. Likely some of them wanted the pleasure of prevailing over their peers while others may have simply enjoyed being part of a team. The lure of prizes may have drawn a few people into the program initially but, once in, folks are motivated by the game, not the prizes.

We see this in our interactions with employees. People are excited to be part of a bigger effort to do the right thing and they appreciate the ways a game can facilitate recognition of their individual efforts. Simple tools like leaderboards and player highlights are very motivating.

This is important news for the leaders who worry that games will require big-ticket prizes. It turns out that playing the game—getting credit for one’s own accomplishments and having an opportunity to cheer on others—is a reward in itself.

And it is not the only reward. In wellness games, employees get healthier and in sustainability games like ours people report both positive lifestyle changes as well as dollar savings. And in all of these games, there is an increase in levels of team work, which provides a whole other realm of corporate benefits.

Indeed, when you pause to do the math you realize that the corporate and individual benefits of employee engagement games add up almost as quickly as the environmental benefits.

Author and journalist Chris Benjamin shared some thoughts about the power of community in a recent blog that bear repeating here:

Almost nobody wants to be The Guy who hurts the community – the One Person who won’t sort the recycling or take out the compost, or show up when the church has a broken banister.  Once sustainable behavior becomes normalized people don’t want to be left out.

In just two sentences Chris creates a powerful vision of exactly the changes we’re aiming to create, here, at Cool Choices. Like Chris, we know that normalizing sustainability makes it compelling. Our aim in our corporate partnerships is to make environmental sustainability so fun, so visible, and so easy that it becomes the norm, the way everyone does things and—as a result —the path that the community identifies as business as usual.

Chris goes on to talk about what it means to promote sustainability at the community level, noting:

Marshaling communities, even semi-communities, to commit to positive environmental change helps the world in two ways: 1) It makes the small positive change and, 2) (more importantly) it builds better, more unified communities who have stepped onto the sustainability continuum together.

As we enter the last month of our pilot at Miron, I see evidence of both kinds of change. Individual participants are seeing financial and non-financial savings in their own lives that translate to a growing portfolio of aggregated environmental benefits. More, as people reflect on what they have done and talk about what else they might do (even after the game ends), we are seeing a collaborative vibe around sustainability that seems broader and deeper than before the pilot. We’ll know more, of course, after the post-pilot evaluations are complete but at this point I’m feeling pretty bullish about the power of workplace communities to normalize sustainability and then rally around that achievement.

Sustainability is hard to define and understanding what it might mean is complicated, often lonely, and not always fun. It is no wonder that many sustainability programs fail to inspire widespread changes. It is tedious to conduct an energy audit. It is hard to sort through nontoxic cleaning items.  And very few people ever want to talk insulation. The Cool Choices way is different. We make sustainability easy, popular and fun.

Cool Choices is conducting a live pilot of an online sustainability game with employees at Miron Construction. So far, it is working. Seventy-five percent of the company signed up to play and more than half have taken at least one action to increase efficiency and conserve resources.

The magic in our game is the social rewards for real-life actions. When you play our game, you earn credit at work by sharing the sustainable choices made within your household. You make progress when you turn off the light and earn even more points when you make a video about it. The points you tally demonstrate your progress. And you work with teammates to create a path to success.  You are recognized for being smart enough to spend less money and live more comfortably. And you earn some fabulous prizes in the process.

Mironites have taken to it. Construction industry professionals from Neenah to Cedar Rapids are eagerly sending in smiling pictures of themselves screwing in light bulbs. They are submitting videos where they talk about the romance of sustainability—turning off the TV might mean catching a sunset with your sweetie after all. They are writing stories about an added sense of relaxation by simply slowing down on the freeway. People’s lives are changing and the game is a part of the equation.

So how does it work? I do not really know, completely. But that will not stop me from offering a few kernels on what it took to succeed to date:

• Understand your players. Our pilots have been designed with players. They have asked for an experience and we deliver.
• Serve your players. Our goal is to leave no question unanswered and no dispute unresolved. And no frowns. Ever.
• Embrace imperfection. Absolute purity is not our goal. Progress is our goal. So we do not expect everyone to become sustainability junkies immediately. And we do not expect our games to be mind-blowing every time – just most of the time.
• Become a contortionist. You have to anticipate and react to situations with grace, flexibility, and imagination.
• Looks matter. Great creative buys you time and helps establish credibility.
• Substance matters too. Our goal is to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. We are pretty serious about it.

Do we believe we have the will to do what’s necessary to slow global warming?

The latest Yale University survey suggests that Americans are increasingly doubtful about our collective will. The percentage of Americans who assert that it’s possible to slow warming “but people aren’t willing to change their behavior so we aren’t going to” has risen four percentage points while those who believe “it’s unclear at this point whether we will do what’s needed” dropped six points. Other categories—including those who deny there’s any warming and who are sure humans will fix everything—stayed relatively constant.

I read those results as a drop in confidence in each other.

The lack of confidence is striking because Cool Choices is in the midst of a pilot at Miron Construction that gives me great cause for optimism. At Miron, more than half of the company’s employees are regularly taking actions to reduce their emissions, having fun and becoming part of the solution.

As I watch what’s happening at Miron a couple of things are clear to me.

First, people want to do the right things—to save money (which enables them to have funds for other priorities), to preserve local resources (so that their kids and grandkids have access to those same resources), and to lead by example.

Second, knowing you are doing the right things feels good. The employees at Miron are sharing their successes with us and their colleagues because they are proud, because these are successes.

And, finally, doing the right things can be contagious. One successful change can lead to another and your successes can prompt a co-worker to make a change as well. The process is slow and far from linear, but ultimately the hundreds of small successes (and people who are glowing with pride at what they’ve accomplished) are how we can build whole communities that are part of the solution.

The climate challenges ahead of us are enormous, but I’m not ready to give up on humans just yet.

I’ve been involved—as an observer, a participant or a catalyst—in a variety of community-based energy efficiency programs over the last two decades. All of those efforts aimed to leverage a geographic or political community identity (neighborhoods, towns, etc.) to encourage individuals to implement energy efficient products or conservation practices in their own homes. Utilities and local governments target geo-political communities because it’s operationally handy—the communities align with utility territories or local government jurisdictions. So it’s easy to know who’s in and who’s out.

Community efforts, though, are most effective in a community with:

• a lot of informal interaction (so successes with one member can influence other members);
• strong established communication networks that reach all community members; and
• clear and compelling leadership to champion the effort.

Given those criteria, I’d argue that the ideal communities are corporate, not geo-political.

Think about your town or neighborhood vs. your workplace community.

• Whereas I wave at a neighbor while pulling into my garage, I chat daily with my co-workers and know more about their lives.
• While my city council person tries to reach me via snail mail and community forums that I rarely attend, everyone in my company has my email address and can interact with me at regularly scheduled meetings that I’m paid to attend.
• And while I might disagree with both at times, my CEO’s commitment to an issue is usually more straightforward than my mayor’s, often because the hierarchy is clearer.

Hence Cool Choices’ current focus on corporate communities. Our approach is to partner with companies that are already leaders in corporate sustainability efforts. We work with these companies to facilitate a cultural transformation where employees embrace sustainability in their personal lives, just as their employer has embraced it on the business side. We believe workplace efforts that promote personal sustainability are a big win for both the corporation and the employees.

For example, these efforts:

• Broaden and deepen employee engagement in corporate sustainability efforts, reinvigorating corporate efforts;
• Provide employees with the tools and opportunities to save money in their personal lives;
• Make sustainability a fun community effort; and
• Enable corporations to differentiate themselves in terms of candidate recruitment, community relations and other arenas.

Ultimately I think these efforts will affect neighborhoods and whole towns. But that might well happen via one employer at a time.